Craft book challenge April

Here is my April edition of the Craft Book Challenge. It's another gorgeous little creation from Scandinavian Stitches. It's a zippered pouch that is around double the depth of a coin pouch. Thought it would be perfect size for a tween birthday girl to put her treasures in. I think it would make a gorgeous 'just in case' pouch actually.

I made a couple of crochet flower clips to go with. Needless to say the birthday girl was happy and her mum wants to know where she can buy my stuff... I hear you loud and clear people and I'm working on it! promise :)

I'm grateful for...

The ability to create...

I taught myself just over a year ago how to crochet and this week I'm thankful for crochet.

I whipped up 3 baby cardigans this week and after they were done I found out 3 of my friends are pregnant... 2 of which had given up on even entertaining the thought of getting pregnant!

I'm also grateful for new beginnings... my daughters room has been uninhabitable since cyclone Yasi dumped her stuff a few weeks ago. She's bunking in with her twin brother, something they haven't done for over 5 years. It's been good for them. We now get to create a tween room for her.

I'm also grateful for quick sewing projects and the ability to make gifts rather than buying them.

See what other sweet peeps are grateful for this week at Maxabella Loves.

Keeping busy indoors

Like the vast majority of the country we've had rain daily since well before Christmas so when normally we'd be out and about exploring the place we've been bailed up at home.

Cut off by flood waters but not directly affected by them. We have family and friends in Brisbane who are all fine so far, just one has water coming up their street but others are pitching in with sandbagging etc. It's heartbreaking to watch it all unfolding on TV and we have no clue what's happening anywhere else right now, it's 24/7 flood coverage. So I do hope you are all well.

It really puts in to perspective how small my troubles are.

The mothering skills have been well tested these holidays. My youngest got around in nothing but jocks for weeks and refused to get dressed, he is such a homebody and also a socialite, so he has been in his element having the whole family at home. He will be lost when they all go their separate ways when school and work go back in a few weeks and then I'll really have to get on my game.

Trying to find things to keep the kids occupied I came across Hip Hip for the Holidays, a joint effort between two crafty ladies. What a great way to keep us all occupied toward the end of the holidays.

The kids just loved doing this especially the boys, the painting...



the hammering...



The twins chose the same shape, as they do.

Dman chose a love heart as his shape and once it had the string on he got around the house strumming it like a guitar humming the star wars 'darth vader' tune...

My kids love going to the museum, It's always very hands on and interactive so you can really spend hours here.

So brave holding a leafy stick insect.

View from the balcony of the museum with the Ross river and Castle Hill in the background. I took this picture for the patch of blue sky, it didn't last long, by the time we left it was raining again. It is the wet season afterall.

How do you keep the kids busy on rainy days?

Craft overload

Townsville had the craft expo come to town this weekend and I went on Saturday with a friend then decided to go back Sunday to grab a quilt kit I decided I just couldn't live without. So I took the twins along and they found the craft corner where they could paint a figurine and I was left to do my own thing. Perhaps it was a good thing that the shop had sold out of what I was after because the kids painted for 3 hours and I did laps of the expo while they created their masterpieces.

I got to chat to the lovely Prudence Mapstone and asked her many questions about crochet and picked up some super soft tencel yarn, markers, patterns and even a tunissian crochet hook. Ahh bliss.

Then I found some absolutely divine japanese printed fabric and realised that my new favourite colours are blue & white. I'm going to attemp some Sashiko and make new couch cushions.

And I also couldn't go past a gorgeous Morris & Sons crochet pattern & hand dyed felt to finish off my pin cushion swap gift.

This is my haul from Sunday only!



Feeling utterly inspired and happy now I had some good felt on hand I set to making a needle book to go with the pin cushion for the swap. I'll say good bye to this cute little guy tommorow and cross fingers that his new owner thinks he's alright.

last one I promise!

So I decided that I'd try making a pincushion that wasn't crocheted and found this gorgeous little pattern in an old Woman's Day Handicrafts Book. It looked easy enough and all I had to do was make a larger pattern from the one in the book. I did this in an art class in high school! Yes, finally something I learned in high school was used in my real life!
It took me only a few short hours. But looking back now I probably shouldn't have started at 3pm and neglected to make dinner! It made Fox very unappreciative of my constant crafting and pin cushion perfection that has been occurring since I joined this darn swap! But it did manage to get some leftovers used up from the fridge. So win win really. Right? lol






And now I'm finally done! This is it. Definately!

this & that

So I've gone all OCD and made a few pincushions for this swap I'm doing.

Actually, there have been 4 made so far... I think this is the one I'll send, because I just realised that heart one looks like the one pictured on the swap button and I wanted to be a bit more original.





And, I made these cute little eggs & chicks for Easter. Dman loves them and we all get kisses from the chicks : )

First visitor

It looks like our first visitor will be here sooner than expected. My wonderful Father in Law is flying over from Perth for a week over Easter. For him, it's a well earned carer's break. Yes at 70 years of age he's caring for his wife (who has MS) as he has done for years. It has only been during the past 2 years that we have managed to convince him he needs a break. So i'm incredibly excited that he wants to spend his break with us. We will try not to wear him out and send him back refreshed not exhausted this time.
He was to be our first visitor in our new home but it looks like Cyclone Ului wants to visit first!
I'm ready for you Ului. The yard has been tidied up, iv'e purchased excessive amounts of tins and non perishables (they call it food but i'm still not convinced). I've backed up the hard drive with all the new photos etc and checked the first aid box & added sunscreen & tropical strength insect reppellent to it because of the dengue & ross river fever issues they have here. I've located all our important documents and will double bag them with the photo albums today.

Did I mention that Fox is away? He left on Tuesday and they're saying he'll be back on Sunday but the Cyclone's due to hit Saturday night so i'm not sure how that works but that's Army life for you. Why do things happen the second they go away? Not saying I can't cope without him... it's just nicer to have someone else here to calm the nerves and go and get the panadol. You see Dman got tonsilitis this week too.

Omg. ** Warning - Rant Alert ** I took him to the doc on Wed and explained he gets tonsilitis, (he'd been complaining of a sore head, throat & stomach & had a high temp.) and that we need a referal to an ENT specialist while we're there. This by the way is probably the most annoying part of being a Defence Familiy... always having to explain to new doctors etc past histories because you know they don't give you your mediacl files to take to the new Doc anymore? It all has to be released... forms, signatures etc. SO we were going to get his tonsils out before xmas before we moved but the ENT guy in Brisbane didn't have a time available until this year & after we had moved. So the process begins again here.
So the doc on Wed didn't want to give him anything because he really didn't look too bad and was still up and running around her office touching everything. I explained that this kid would still run around with a fourty degree temp. Nonetheless we decided to wait (for her benefit) to see what would happen and come back if it worsened. Sure enough we were up all Wed night and then the vommiting began Thursday morning. I took him back to the doc with a high temp & vomiting, this time he refused to walk and made me carry him. So he laid on her bed and it was very obvious to her that he really was sick. She kind of apologised and wrote him a script for antibiotics etc. I understand why she did it and next time I know she will realise i'm not tyying to over medicate my child. Deep breath **there rant over**
Dman is on the mend now and trying to milk it by getting everyone to run around after him. Oh hang on, he's like that normally. He must be better now. lol : )

Crazy week for sure! There's more but i'm not going to bore you with it...I still managed to get some craft going though. Crochet is so good for relaxing I tell you. I'm working on something for Mumbles (aka Con) room... here's a peek...

One for you... two for me

I have been eyeing off this gorgeous Bloom Journal Cover tutorial for a while now and yesterday I had some time to fling one (or two) together. My first attempt (not shown) was a dismal failure so I think next time I try to get fancy and convert inches to centimeters I really should write the measurements down... duh. But this one fits my craft notebook well.





And today saw time to make a pin cushion. Yes Iv'e signed up to Fox's Lane pincushion swap!!
... seeing as Iv'e never made one before I thought it be best to practice first so as to be kind to my swap partner.
I think it's sweet and it was quickly swept away by my 3 year old pretending to have cups of tea. Will somehow steal it back when he's not looking.
It was also my first attempt at Amigurumi, so look out kids, mumma's going to making a few more cute little crochet creations.



Hope you all had a lovely weekend x

super sunday

My new love...



Last year a lovely cousin gave me her mother's sewing machine & overlocker. My Auntie went to heaven couple of years ago & she wanted me to have them because i guess she new i'd use them.

I call the sewing machine the fancy pfaff because it is compared to my $50 janome oppy find from 10yrs ago.

I didn't get to use it straight away because the manual was missing in action. I was getting around to ordering one when out of the blue my Uncle called to say he'd found it... woo hoo.

So, today was the day i finally got to have a go. And suprisingly easy to use ... now i know what all the buttons are for.

I can not tell you how excitied I am about this machine, she is just beautiful and has a lot more control than the janome.

From now on in, sorry Janome, it's going to be Pfaff all the way...

Iv'e been looking for a good time to make this cute drawstring bag from the Meet Me At Mikes craft book. so today was the day. Not sure if i read the instructions wrong but mine turned out quite small, i'd recommend adding 1cm to the entire pattern and go with that. My pocket turned out very small and i had to cut a new pen holder piece with the extra allowance for seam as my original would never have fit a pen.




Anyway, i think the bag is really cute so I will make one for myself next time to keep my crochet gear in for on the go.

Hope you had a super Sunday x

two is definately better than one

Feeling guilty about my pathetic dishcloth create a long attempt and only producing 1 when others have created many I decided to make another, but a more simple style this time. I managed to crank the second one out in about an hour, whereas the first took me a few days...

I used patterns from 'the big book of Dishcloths'. If you have this book I used #96 & #16.

The yarn used was Lion Cotton - colour 146 fuchsia

So now I have a lovely pair of cloths in my gift stash. The yarn I used was really easy to crochet so I will have to get some more from the lovely Gabrielle at American Yarns.

Swap Bot - fabric post card swap

spoiler alert if you happen to be my swap bot swap partner...

this weekend we've been cleaning the house in preparation for our move north in 3 weeks time. to break up the utter boredom and to give myself a rest from the chemical warfare, i joined this cute little swap.

the task is to make a fabric postcard and this is what i made...



Looking for ideas, i found this tree stencil in a xmas craft book.



found some suitable fabric from my stash.



used double sided iron on to place the pieces.



blanket stitched around the tree... and...



hand stitched my message... then...



Added some sequins.



made the back with calico & stitched the lines, and finally



the finished postcard...

now ... back to some more cleaning... sigh

The Machine that started it all

Hi there, i'm new to the world of blogging, love reading them but when it came to having my own it seemed somewhat overwhealming to begin with. So... what should I put in my first post? Well i though it fitting that I show you my beautiful machine and what she has helped me make so far.



She's an old Janome that was bought from an oppy 9 years ago. Since then we have made bathers, pijamas, my wedding dress, fairy dress ups, batman capes etc. and just last year I decided I would start quilting. I figured if I could make my own wedding dress then quilts would be easy right?



So I made this Quilt for my cousin's little boy Jack. Then I made a heap of library bags for friends and family...



The twins needed School library & chair bags



An most recently I finished Dmans Pirate quilt. I started not long after I finishe Jack's quilt last year. It was an UFO until motivation struck me down in the form of a nagging husband who was in my ear about making something for our own kids for once...



So happy when this baby was completed. And Dman just loves it too.

So now i'm in the process of making xmas quilts for the Twins. Connor chose the quilt I made for Jack but i'm making it bigger for him And Meeka is getting a flower quilt. Will show more later.

And that's it for now. Thank you to the lovely Bianca for making me get a wriggle on and convising me on how easy it is to blog :)